November Reading Plans

There are two challenges running in November that I’d like to take part in again this year: #SciFiMonth and #NovellasInNovember (co-run by Rebecca and Cathy). Serendipitously, I tend to get on a lot better with SF novellas than with any other kind of novella, so these two challenges work well together for me. I also have an eye on mopping up some of my 2021 TBR, finishing my Netgalley proofs for the year, and getting some belated spooky reading in. Here’s some thoughts I had about what to read this month.

Sci Fi Month

I’ve wanted to try Charles Yu’s writing for some time, so I’m looking forward to trying his collection of short stories, Sorry Please Thank You, which seem to have an SF bent: ‘A big-box store employee is confronted by a zombie during the graveyard shift, a problem that pales in comparison to his inability to ask a coworker out on a date . . . A fighter leads his band of virtual warriors, thieves, and wizards across a deadly computer-generated landscape, but does he have what it takes to be a hero? . . . A company outsources grief for profit, its slogan: “Don’t feel like having a bad day? Let someone else have it for you.”’

Nicholas Binge’s Professor Everywhere sounds like it combines all the things I love most: campus settings, mysterious academia and multiple worlds: ‘Chloe Chan is just about to give up on finding any real scholars at University when she starts to hear the rumours about Professor Roland Crannus… As her obsession with the Professor grows, she’s plunged into an otherworldly chess game of linguistics and etymology. But the deeper she falls into his academic labyrinth, the more she begins to realise that someone, or something, is hunting them both.’

Novellas in November

I want to read the two novellas by Maki Kashimada collected in Touring the Land of the Dead, which was one of my most anticipated reads for 2021; I think the second novella in the collection, Ninety-Nine Kisses, sounds even more interesting.

I’ve read everything Sarah Moss has written, and I have a Netgalley proof of her lockdown novella, The Fell, which is out in November. It sounds great: a woman escaping quarantine walks up onto the moor by herself, but an injury means she can’t get back home again…

Namwali Serpell’s essay collection, Stranger Faces, clocks in under the 200-page mark. I was impressed by Serpell’s writing in her fiction debut, The Old Drift (even though I didn’t finish it), and I loved her essay on empathy in fiction (even though I didn’t agree with all of it), so I’m excited to check this out!

I also have my eye on Caleb Azumah Nelson’s debut novella, Open Water, which follows the love story of two black British artists in London. I’m not sure about the second-person narration, but I’m happy to give it a go.

Sci Fi Novellas in November

I’m a huge Becky Chambers fan, so her new novella, A Psalm For The Wild-Built, is high on my list; it was also one of my most anticipated 2021 reads. This starts a new series about robots living in the wilderness of Earth.

I also want to try Premee Mohamed’s These Lifeless Things, which follows Eva, a survivor of an apocalyptic invasion of monsters.

Finally, I’ve wanted to read Rivers Solomon’s The Deep for ages: ‘The water-breathing descendants of African slave women tossed overboard have built their own underwater society—and must reclaim the memories of their past to shape their future’.

Netgalley

Apart from the Moss, I have two NetGalley proofs to read in November: J.R. Thorp’s Learwife, which retells the story of King Lear from the point of view of Lear’s queen, and Ann Patchett’s new essay collection These Precious Days. I like Patchett’s non-fiction even more than her fiction, so I’m particularly excited to dive into the latter.

Spooky Reading

I’ve requested The Haunting Season from Netgalley, a collection of spooky short stories by an amazing line-up of writers: Bridget Collins, Natasha Pulley, Imogen Hermes Gowar, Kiran Millwood Hargrave and Elizabeth Macneal, plus a couple of writers I’m keen to try: Jess Kidd and Sara Collins. (Not so keen on the final two contributors to the collection, Andrew Michael Hurley and Laura Purcell, but you can’t win them all). If Netgalley don’t come through for me, I’ll probably buy this, as I’ve been excited about it for the whole year!

Which of these books should I prioritise (as I clearly can’t read them all?) What are your November reading plans? Are you taking part in either Novellas in November or SF Month, or a different challenge?